Day eleven of Lost Gems of Yesteryear sees us add 9 writeups to the quest master list. Walter gave us almost an entire quest's worth of worthy writeups in August 6, 2007, but for listing purposes I could only pick 3 of these.
Writeups nominated in the week leading up to 11 August 2007:
runner's road rage by futurebird
The Sin Eater by bewilderbeast
Slint by Mr. Hotel
So this one-legged man walks into a bar by BlueÆon
Standing on a mountaintop in northern Siberia under the rapidly descending bulk of asteroid McAlmont, with a calculating expression and a baseball bat by sam512
Why strapping buttered toast to a cat's back will not produce infinite power by (not specified)
Now is the time when I start: Drink by akatchoom
I was Christian for a day by claypenny
Boo, age two and a half by Mitzi
So far, writeup reputations haven't moved much, an average of +3. Only two writeups lost ground overall (each by -1) and the biggest gainers are at +12 (one) and +7 (two more). I'd like to see some more people voting and thus helping to move this part of the quest along.
One of my choices is lateral fricative by Gritchka.
I really enjoy Gritchka's language and grammar writeups. It's a topic I know very little about. I have managed technical writers and done copy edits but I never claimed to have any expertise. Yet the rules of language — and the mutations and exceptions thereof — fascinate me.
Gritchka makes his little language lessons diverting and entertaining. Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting all the depth of it, but that's OK. I'm reading for enjoyment, not to take an exam.
What I particularly like about lateral fricative is that Gritchka tells us clearly that "Most of what I'm about to explain I had to work out for myself." That's right, it's "original research". That's one of the things that differentiates e2 from some other web sites. We do allow folks to post their own work. Sometimes that work is of superb quality, as here. When it's posted by an author of long standing and high reputation, we don't need a mound of references. Gritchka's body of other nodes gives us confidence in this.
Plus, it's just fun to read a writeup by someone so into the topic (Has anyone else recently read "Teach Yourself Xhosa"? Like my first nominee, this is work written by someone with a passion for the subject, and it shows.